


Celestial Orbits and Infinite Asymptotes

by 3isme



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: A little bit horror maybe, Alternate Universe - Actors, Drama & Romance, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Stephanie Brown (Minor) - Freeform, Tim Drake (Mention) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-08-11 17:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20157679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3isme/pseuds/3isme
Summary: Jason and Dick are co-stars in a new supernatural TV show and their characters are mortal enemies. In real life, they're roommates, so it's eye-opening when they find out that the internet ships not just their characters, but them both.OrThe Oh My God They're Roommates! that takes itself too seriously to be a proper rom-com





	Celestial Orbits and Infinite Asymptotes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elwon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elwon/gifts).

> This probably wasn't what you were thinking when you wrote your prompt, but I hope you enjoy.

Dick stretches his arms above his head, fingers laced together, arching backwards with a pop of his joints. A deep sigh accompanies the motion, and he shakes himself loose. This was one of the longer filming sessions, having started quite early in the morning, and he's ready to call it a day. He's done changing and has packed everything he wants to take with him for the evening. 

Beside his bag, Dick’s cellphone lights up with a notification and maybe he’ll send a quick text to Jason. Let him know Dick is going home first. He picks up his phone and opens their chat, but his fingers pause over the keyboard on the screen, and Dick chews on his lower lip. It couldn’t hurt to wait for Jason to finish, and besides, walking home with someone else is... More enjoyable.

Dick clicks his phone off and shoves it into his back pocket.

From outside the soundproofed studio room, Dick has no idea when the filming will finish . Stifling a yawn, he leans back against the wall, gently – because soundproofed or not, Dick would hate to make a sound and force the occupants on the other side of the wall to have to restart – and settles in to wait.

The buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the ticking of the clock on the opposite wall are abnormally loud in the silent hallway, and Dick’s half-closed eyes track the second hand as it ticks its way to the large “9” on the clock. The repetitive motion is numbing, and the seconds seem to slow until time stretches to a stop. Dick’s eyes slip closed and for a moment everything in the hall seems dead.

But only for a moment.

The door beside Dick opens abruptly with the loud hiss-clang of a compressing metal push-bar, and Dick springs into the doorway, dodging the stagehand who opened the door, and ducks inside the room to vanish among the flurry of color and noise that signals the completion of filming a scene.

Jason wipes the sweat from his brow and shrugs off the heavy cloak he’s wearing under the bright lights illuminating the set. He’s been staring into the lights for the better part of an hour for this scene – necessary for anything to be seen on screen, he supposes, but certainly painful to his eyes – and he can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when the brightest of them shut off. Jason blinks hard and holds himself back from rubbing his eyes, mindful of the eyeliner. By the time the green spots in his vision vanish, the room has already lost the focused stillness from before and devolved into a chaos of moving parts and loud shouting.

The green screen hangs from the ceiling to form a wall behind him and stretches underfoot to make up the ground of the set. He sidesteps the set dressers who are replacing the fake rocks that made up the foreground with wooden chairs and tables and crosses from the vibrant green onto the black linoleum of the real world. It’s like finally getting to a rest-stop on a long road trip and Jason feels the tension evaporating from his shoulders.

A camera is wheeled across his path and he waits for it to pass before he navigates the tracks it ran on and the wires arranged on the floor. Finally, he makes it to his Chair and settles in to wait, as always, for the activity to die down. Jason accepts the small towel offered to him, draping it around his neck, before unscrewing the cap of his water bottle and draining it dry.

It doesn’t matter that this is the sixth scene that he’s filmed today, he still cannot get used to the hubbub. He does, however, pick out the unmistakable head of his once-childhood friend weaving its way towards him through the throng of equipment and people, and despite himself, Jason’s heart skips a beat. Damn it.

In the dressing room he is sure that Dick left only a few minutes ago, Jason swaps his soaked undershirt for a new one, sneaking a glance at his… friend? Maybe not. The last time they spoke – before being cast for _Hidden Truths_ – was several years ago after all. It hadn’t been a pleasant parting either. They’re welcoming enough to each other _now_, but it feels like the unsure interactions of polite freshmen college students sharing a dorm room for the first time. 

Dick is idly scrolling his phone while leaned against the wall, gaze fixed on the device in his hand, and Jason wonders if he’s glad that Dick is giving him privacy or if he’s kind of hurt that Dick doesn’t even try to sneak a peek while Jason is sweaty and half-naked in the same room.

Jason catches himself and angrily pulls his shirt the rest of the way on. He got over his crush years ago. Dick has never shown any interest in him before, and nothing would have _improved_ after years of absence.

But he stayed to accompany Jason, didn’t he? Why… Why else would Dick be hanging around _here_ right now?

Folding up his old change of clothes, Jason takes a long, but inaudible breath and tosses over his shoulder, “You didn’t have to wait.”

“Hmm?”

When Jason looks back, he notices that Dick hasn’t even paused typing on his phone. He manages to shove away familiar feelings of disappointment but can’t help the snide tone of his next words, “You probably had better things to do than wait for me.” _Shut up, Jason_. “I don’t need you here.”

Dick seems to snap out of a daze, “Oh, I. Sorry, Jason–”

And he’s smiling apologetically but he looks so tired and Jason didn’t notice that before... Guilt squirms in his gut and fuck why does he have Dick’s full attention right_ now_?

“– I guess I just wanted to.”

What?

“Let me walk you home?” Dick’s smile is as sincere as ever, and Jason hates that he can’t read if that means it’s real at all, so he scoffs.

“We live in the same apartment, idiot.”

Dick laughs and Jason’s ugly mix of emotions melts into a comforting warmth that he tries to tell himself is just heartburn from his stress.

The walk home had started nicely, the warm tones of the setting sun lazy and companionable, making it easy for each actor to become lost in their own thoughts. At a lull in their steps as they wait for the crosswalk light to turn green, Jason sneaks a peek at the man waiting next to him, his gaze catching the shine of sunlight in Dick’s glossy black hair before sliding to the dark shadows clinging to the light on his face.

Dick hasn’t changed much from when they were kids, he thinks. An orphan and a boy who may as well have been, ever since that last disastrous job that had seen Willis thrown in jail and a mother long since dead. Two boys in an orphanage, inseparable after scant months of acquaintance, before growing apart as life’s struggles and gifts put distance and years between them - until three months ago.

Three months ago, a handshake and a meeting of eyes in the producer’s office, and Jason found himself offering Dick a place in the apartment Jason rented. In truth, rooming together had been uncomfortably awkward, each grown and both familiar and a stranger. Jason shouldn’t have offered, but a part of him had jumped at the chance to be close to Dick again and the convenient location was a perfect excuse. The apartment is only a short walk away from the studio where Jason is acting in his first starring role, and where Dick, back – _or is it_ _away?_ \- from Europe, is working for a production company far, _far_ below the standards of what anyone would expect for the rising star. Except maybe said star’s own.

Jason opens his mouth to ask, but the stoplight changes and they step off the curb onto the black and white of the crosswalk. He doesn't let that stop him.

“Dick.”

“Hmm?” Jason waits, a little impatiently, for Dick to look away from stepping only on the whites of the road, and it isn’t until they are safely striding down the concrete sidewalk across the street that Dick looks up and meets his gaze. The shadows of the setting sun at his back, Dick’s eyes seem to glow unearthly blue and Jason’s words peter out on his tongue as his breath catches in his throat.

Seconds pass and Dick cocks his head to the left – _it had always been to the left_ – raising an eyebrow in question.

“Jason?”

“Why did you choose this role?” Jason blurts. _Did you come here for me?_ “You could have chosen anything in the world,” he tacks on, a little helplessly.

For a moment, Jason thinks Dick heard his unspoken question, because those discerning eyes bore into his for a moment too long and _fuck_ Jason’s given too much away _again_–

“I suppose… I guess it’s because it feels right, acting as Rhivash right now. To be honest, it feels like a little twist of luck, being where I am,” Dick shrugs, unconcerned and oblivious.

It’s both a relief and yet strangely painful that Dick can’t catch Jason’s tells. Not nearly as well as he once did. But back then, Jason hadn’t felt the need to hide much from him anyway.

_I’m glad you’re here now_, Jason swallows and doesn’t say. Instead, he slides his hands into his pockets and assumes an equally unconcerned mask, infusing as much nonchalance as he can into his tone. “Huh, cool.”

Jason’s never been more aware of their distance. Him with words unsaid and untrusting of the stability of the ground beneath his feet, walking a parallel path down this cracked sidewalk that seems endless, never to intersect. But, intimately familiar with this well-worn road, his feet had never broken stride.

~...~

The cameras are rolling, and Jason shivers a little in the late evening air, watching Dick immerse himself into his role as if the cold, forested location where they’re currently filming is actually as warm as the summer night written into the script. He wonders again at what could have driven Dick to accept the offer of such an unknown company, even if it was a starring role. Growling at himself inside, Jason shuts off that train of thought. All that’s down that path is bitter disappointment.

“There’s a reason I won’t tell you my name.” 

“Huh?” Peter shoots the man that fished him from an unexpected swim down the river a dirty look and huddles closer to the fire. It’s cold in the evenings and the blanket wrapped around him while his clothes dry isn’t nearly thick enough.

The nameless man leans forward, fingers dangling Peter’s sopping shirt close to the fire and knees pressing into the dirt clearing of his temporary camp. “I can’t control it, but I take on the form of other people’s most cherished person, if they know my name.” A smile is shot Peter’s way. “There’s a few other complicated bits, but that’s why I’m not telling you mine.”

“You’re a shapeshifter?” Peter’s nose wrinkles as he ponders if he is okay with this. Deciding that there are more interesting things to consider, he asks, forgetting himself for a moment, “But what if two people know your name?”

The man’s smile grows wider. “Well that’s the other complicated part. I’m not entirely sure myself, but I’m pretty sure it also matters how important _I _am to a person.”

Peter can’t restrain a twitch when his shirt dips dangerously close to the fire as the man lets go with one hand to point a finger imperiously up in the air. His voice is falsely posh when he continues, “Imagine for example, both you and a stranger knew my name. Since I’m more important to you than to the stranger, I would look like your most cherished person.”

_As if you’re important to me!_ Peter nearly scoffs but realizes at the last second that it might not be a good idea to antagonize the person currently holding his clothes hostage (_drying them by the fire_).

His saviour’s eyes twinkle and Peter is _sure_ the bastard knew what he was thinking.

Peter narrows his eyes. “I still don’t trust you.”

The man only throws his head back and laughs happily.

Peter remembers that the stars had been amazingly bright the night the one that saved him became more than a nice but passing acquaintance. The outline of his face was clear despite the lack of a moon. 

“I knew what I looked like once.”

Peter doesn’t dare interrupt, now that the man is finally in a sharing mood. The trip back to Peter’s village has taken longer than either expected, and Peter finds himself wanting to get to know more about the mysterious person who is both excessively kind and yet carries himself with a world-weariness that speaks of a tragedy that should have wiped that kindness away.

“I had a younger brother, and before him, I had no idea what I looked like. Not even with my father.” His voice is no louder than a murmur now. “Sometimes I feel like I’m cursed, knowing that I’m not anyone’s most cherished person. But that’s selfish, isn’t it?”

Peter doesn’t know what to say, and his travelling companion is already pushing on before he can think of a platitude that would have seemed so, so empty.

“You remind me of him, actually. My brother.” The man’s hand settles on Peter’s head, and for once, Peter doesn’t shake it off, but a cold stone settles heavy in his gut.

He doesn’t want it to, but Peter can’t hold back the small waver in his voice when he asks, “Is that why you saved me? Because I remind you of your brother?”

“What? No!” The man turns to face Peter, fingers wiggling in the air, and Peter completely fails to dodge the hair ruffling he is subjected to, his curls fluffed even further when Peter grabs at the man’s hands. “How could anyone leave such a cute kid to be washed down the river? Certainly not me!”

“You– ! Stop _messing up my hair_ you idiot!”

It wasn’t long after that when Peter learned Rhivash’s name, smile blooming alongside the newfound trust in his heart. 

But it never will again.

On his knees before charred, smoking remains, acrid air burning his airways and watering eyes, Peter reaches for his mother only to be met with ashes crumbling at his touch. His fist closes into a ball, and blood drips from his too tight grip, splattering into the dirt like the tears running down his cheeks.

Peter doesn’t know how long he knelt there, hunched in on himself before the still looming stake, but the pale lavenders and vibrant oranges of the rising sun paint the morning sky before he uncurls. His eyes are dry and flinty, and Peter greets the dawn with rage burning brighter and hotter than the flames that had relentlessly consumed his mother.

She was not a witch. Never again is he going to be fooled by the false kindness of others, and nothing is going to stop Peter from making the thrice-damned shapeshifter that used his mother’s form pay for what he’s done.

His first task: learn how to kill a man.

~...~

It’s one of those early mornings where Dick locks himself in his bedroom and is _so_ tempted to press the first number on his speed dial. Maybe accepting the role of Rhivash hadn’t been his best idea, not if it defeats the whole purpose of coming back to America in the first place.

Before he knows it, he’s pressed the button and is listening to the call go out, waiting anxiously for someone to pick up. By the seventh ring, he sighs and is about to hang up when his call is answered.

“Hello?” The answering voice is a higher pitch than he hoped, and his heart aches but he presses on anyway.

“Hi, Stephanie. I was wondering if–“

He’s cut off by some muttering, catching only the tail end of it, “…that’s why he didn’t answer,” and Dick bites his lower lip, silencing himself. He hears a deep sigh and, “Look Dick, Tim doesn’t want to talk to you. At least, not right now. And I don’t think– I don’t think it would be good for him right now, he truly believes that Bruce is, well. _That._”

A pause. “You probably shouldn’t call again.”

Dick’s grip on his phone tightens and his throat feels hollow. “I– Okay. Stephanie will you– If he. _When_ he…” Dick’s voice breaks, “Please.”

There’s silence on the line, and Dick holds his breath, blinking away the wetness gathering in his eyes.

“I’ll let you know.”

Dick’s voice is raspy. “Thank you.”

The abnormally cheerful beep of a cellphone hanging up seems to echo in his ears and he tentatively sets his phone down among the clutter on the desk in his room. Three steps and he’s sinking onto his bed, staring blankly at the carpeted floor.

How could he have been so careless? Tim is kind-hearted and will worry about him even if he hates him. Dick is at once both devastated and desperately relieved that Tim wasn’t the one to answer his impulsive call.

Time. He can give Tim time. It’s the least he can do, since he cannot give an honest denial of Bruce’s mortality. 

Dick lays back on the bed, curling on his side, and shuts his eyes. Tomorrow will be just another normal day. He’ll make sure of it.

Jason watches the ending of another indoor filming session including Dick and the child actor filling in as Peter. As much as the makeup artists are magic with their hands, it’s a bit too much to ask them to shrink Jason to act in this particular scene. Despite a limited budget, they’ve hired another actor for Peter. Luckily Dick’s character, Rhivash, is ageless and the studio has been able to make do. 

Dick accepts the bottle of water Jason gives him as they pass each other, swapping places on set and off. The warm feeling of Dick’s fingers brushing against his own stays with Jason even as he does his best to ignore the distraction.

But a quick glance as he gets into position, and he sees that Dick hasn’t stayed to watch. He hasn’t even cracked open the water bottle and is already pushing open one of the double doors leading outside the filming room.

~...~

“Where did you see the ghost?” Peter growls, his cloaked form looming over a loose-lipped drunk man that he had dragged from the too loud tavern. He barely restrains himself from throttling the drunk while he puts his thoughts together, far too slowly, and the fear Peter’s instilling probably isn’t helping.

“I have kids! Please, have mercy–” Peter sighs through his nose, backing off slightly.

“Tell me where you saw that blasted sha– ghost, and you’re free to go!”

The man swallows, not nearly as boastful as he was but two seconds ago, “In Seyjoa, that abandoned mountain town. The one near Rayne castle, I swear!”

Peter turns away abruptly, abandoning his quarry with long strides, a dark shroud in the waning moonlight as a cloud passes in the sky.

And the man must have been brave enough to be telling the truth about Seyjoa because he calls after Peter, “I wouldn’t go! There’s dark arts happening. The Lord Thomas Rayne II has returned to his castle and brought the ghost of his lover with him!”

Peter doesn’t stop, and when the moonlight makes it over the edge of the cloud, it lights an anticipatory grin on the young man’s face.

“Perfect.”

A week and two days of ceaseless walking between dawn and dusk, and Peter sets foot on the castle grounds, poised just before the yawning gap that is the moat, fifteen feet deep and twenty feet wide. It was once filled with water, but is now bone dry, dust drawn from the sandy dirt at the bottom with each gust of wind. Peter was never a strong swimmer.

When he makes it inside the castle, he’s glad that navigating won’t be difficult. Dust from the moat had settled throughout all the castle halls, coating floors with thin layers of light brown silt. Passers-by are easily tracked merely by following the spaces most disturbed, where the displaced sand often captures even gaits and strides through footprints. Rhivash will be easy to find. Peter places a gloved hand on the hilt of his blade and tells himself that the trembling of his fingers is from anticipation and anger. Peter knows, as he has ever since his mother’s murder, what path he’s going to take.

His movements are silent even though he’s quick, and the air barely stirs as he passes through. He ignores one dim hall, turns left up a narrow staircase, and skirts the edges of the broken ballroom that was once gold-gilded with grandeur.

As he slinks his way deeper into the veins of the building, an oddity nags insistently in the back of his mind. He hears a hushed whisper, barely a breath, and freezes. His fingers grip the handle of his sword, and his eyes dart around in quick glances at every shadowed alcove, every menacing, hidden space behind decrepit drapery. The murmurs become louder and Peter knows. He knows that something is approaching.

There. Four strides down the hall from him. A door creaks open but a crack. Enough to reveal the icy stare of a deep blue eye inset in half of his mother’s face, seeming to get closer though nothing has moved. Peter hears his own heartbeat, a rapid drum above the rushing thrum of his blood in his ears.

He blinks, and she’s gone.

Peter collapses in the deafening silence, gasping air and covered in cold sweat. For a moment, he considers turning back. How can he fight his mother’s ghos–

No! That had to be Rhivash. Peter dismisses the fearfully voiced echoes of dark arts from his mind. Death stalks this castle, but Peter will make it his friend.

He adjusts the grip of his sword hand. Three quick, soundless steps and he’s before the door, off to the side and unseen by anything within. One second and he yanks it open, ready to attack.

There is almost nothing – only a large, circular room nearly the circumference of the turret, and stairs winding their way up the walls to end at the base of a trapdoor. Small openings let in just enough light so that Peter doesn’t trip as he climbs the steps. No matter how silent Peter tries to be, the scuff of his boots against the stone steps echoes up and down the hollow tower.

Two-thirds up and Peter catches the wet-thump sounds of what looks like a rotting severed head rolling down the steps towards him, skipping several stairs with each thump. With a muffled yelp and eyes wide, Peter swings the broad side of his blade at the head, refusing to let it get closer if he can help it.

His sword passes harmlessly through, and Peter flinches back as the head seems to throw itself at him, unimpeded. Just as before, the head goes right through him, continuing to bounce its way down, down, down.

Leaning against the damp stone wall, Peter calms his rolling stomach. He pushes the memory of his traitorous once-neighbor’s head from his mind’s eye with a deep breath and presses onwards and upwards.

~...~

Jason grits his teeth, watching Dick lean back against the wall and slide down it until he’s seated on the ground. A white towel covers his eyes.

He thought Dick left a bit too quickly, was a bit too curt when receiving the congratulations for a well filmed scene. Jason doesn’t think Dick had gotten too lost in the role: he isn’t experiencing the pains of Rhivash but he thinks it’s something close. He aches to hold Dick in his arms, murmur reassurances and wipe the tears he _knows_ are hidden under that white fabric, but he doesn’t even know what’s wrong. He doesn’t have the faintest clue what Dick is suffering away from the eyes of everyone else.

But he knows he can’t leave Dick like this. So, he drags the heavy bench that is both just a little down the hall and the bane of his left shinbone to a new position. The towel on Dick’s face falls when he flinches at the banging noise of Jason setting the bench back down on the linoleum floor, and he registers that Jason had just blockaded a set of double doors. A very _important_ set of double doors. The ones that lead to the filming room where the rest of the cast, crew, and producer still are. The producer that is _their boss_.

Dick’s mouth drops open at the sight, and his expression only slowly morphs into confusion when Jason claps his hands free of dust, a satisfied smile on his face. Before Dick can voice any of the questions screaming in his head, Jason is stopping in front of him and sitting down a hair’s breadth away, shooting quick glances down the hall in both directions. He pulls out his phone, typing rapidly before holding it up.

“Look,” Jason orders. Dick blinks blankly at the screen that’s way too close to his face. He leans back a little to see the screen better and – oh.

_Who’s the fucker in that room that I’m going after?_

It’s not funny. It really isn’t, but Dick bursts into laughter, loud laughs that turn into gasps and wails that he muffles against Jason, leaning forward to rest his face against his childhood friend’s shoulder, fingers tight around handfuls of the back of Jason’s shirt. A moment later and the warmth of Jason’s arms around him and it’s been too long since he’s felt so loved.

The walk home is once again colored by the rays of the setting sun, but somehow, the shadows don’t seem as deep today. It’s a peaceful, companionable stroll, accompanied by the occasional engine purr from a passing vehicle. 

“Hey Jay?” Dick murmurs, staring at the tips of shoes hiding his curled toes and reaching out to pinch the sleeve of Jason’s t-shirt. The slight tug prompts Jason to stop, eyes drawn to the small contact between them, and nearly missing Dick’s next words.

“Thanks. For earlier.”

Jason raises an eyebrow. “Locking the director in the filming studio? Anytime.”

Dick scowls, “You know what I mean.” Then he remembers just why Jason had _locked_ _literally everyone else_ in the room and melts into a soft smile.

And that should have been the end of that. Jason will go with a casual “sure” and everything will be safely back to normal.

Instead, Jason hears himself blurt, “I meant it. For you, anytime.”

Pink blooms across the bridge of Dick’s nose, coloring his cheeks, and Jason swallows, his mouth suddenly gone dry.

Abruptly, Dick pulls back, hiding his embarrassment behind his hands, and barely holding back the high-pitched surprise in his throat. Jason feels ice down his spine. He claps a hand over his own mouth, eyes wide, and spins 180 degrees to hide. _Fuckfuckfuck. What is he saying? He isn’t ready– No, wrong! Dick’s not supposed to know at all!_

Dick peeks between his fingers at Jason’s back, taking in the tense shoulders hunched up around red-tipped ears, and a white-knuckled fist clenched around itself. Oh. Dick can’t leave Jason afraid.

Brushing aside the burning heat in his body, Dick moves, stopping beside Jason and keeping his gaze averted, down and away to the left. Reaching out, his fingertips slide light touches down Jason’s wrist and nudge his tightly closed fist to relax.

Dick can feel Jason’s hand trembling, so Dick twines his own fingers between Jason’s into a comforting clasp. He feels a return squeeze, but Jason hasn’t stopped shaking. Dick risks a quick swivel of the eyes, and Jason’s face is burning red?

This, it’s a different kind of fear, isn’t it?

Releasing his lower lip from between his teeth, Dick takes a breath to speak and Jason somehow tenses further in anxious anticipation.

A click and a whir.

Dick’s mouth snaps shut at the sound of a shutter, and Jason looks at Dick in surprise a mere moment later, the moment broken.

A quick glance at their surroundings and Dick has a small frown on his face. There is no one around but a child walking a dog and a group of teens taking selfies with the fountain in the neighboring park.

Jason returns his focus to him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Dick says, “Just a little paranoid after the paparazzi in Europe.”

“Ah,” Jason eyeballs the teens suspiciously and Dick rolls his eyes.

“Don’t bother them! I was just being oversensitive.” Dick uses his grip on Jason’s hand to pull his attention away from the teens. He feels Jason give his hand a squeeze in return, and Jason isn’t shaking anymore.

The scowl on Jason’s face is wiped off when he sees a small smile blooming back to life on Dick’s lips. But then Dick is hiding his expression from Jason by running towards home, tugging Jason behind him.

Neither one of them notice the busy cellphones in front of the fountain snapping photos, now with the shutter sound turned off.

~...~

The trapdoor thrown wide open behind him, Peter rushes at the two men he finds standing before an intricate, stained circle at the top of the tower. One, a large man, broad all over, angry expression. The other, shorter, black hair, yellow irises, blinking twice in surprise. Both spitting images of their portrait portrayals he passed in the castle halls.

_The Lord Thomas Rayne II has returned to his castle and he’s brought the ghost of his lover with him!_

The large man is the Lord, so Peter swings at Rhivash. The man ducks away with a yelp, and as he does, he shrinks, becoming shorter, hair growing longer and changing from black to a dirty blonde. His yellow irises are now an icy blue, and Peter finds himself pointing his blade at his mother’s form.

He grits his teeth and slashes anyway.

A clash of steel against steel and Peter is dodging the skillful follow-through after the parry that Lord Rayne used to stop Peter’s strike from cleaving Rhivash’s head from his shoulders. He backs up to regroup, glaring at the two across the tower from him. His eyes narrow further when Lord Rayne helps Rhivash up, but the harsh tone of the words that follow is anything but caring, audible even above the flapping of Peter’s cloak in the wind.

“Change back.” An order.

“I can’t, Thomas! I don’t control it,” Rhivash protests, with a hint of rebuke. “It just means– It just means I’m more important to him than to you.”

Peter laughs, boldly and hollowly, before snarling, “How the hell could you possibly be important to me?”

Lord Rayne looks like he agrees, below the derision coating his face, but Rhivash only seems perfused with sadness.

“Important doesn’t have to mean love.” The statement is quiet and tinged in resignation. Rhivash turns to the Lord, then. “Besides, Thomas, it’s not _me_ that matters to you in the end.”

Rayne eyes Rhivash’s current form, although he remains wary of Peter’s slowly circling to the left, and his lip curls in derision. “No,” he states, nodding once in agreement. “It isn’t you. Not until sunset.”

~...~

Jason hasn’t figured out what Dick was going to ask yet.

The blinking red digits on the clock says it’s four seventeen in the morning, and Jason still hasn’t slept a blink. His hand is still tingling with the warmth of Dick’s hand even though he knows it’s impossible. Did it mean anything? Is Jason just being oversensitive about this? Why won’t whatever powers that be just let him sleep? He has _work_ tomorrow. Jason glances at the clock again. Four nineteen. He has _work_ this morning.

Jason groans and both hands rise to rub his face. No. _No_. He’s going to put this out of his mind. Tomorrow– today is going to be like any other. No reason to overthink. Or be _oversensitive_. C’mon, two hours of shut-eye and he’ll wake up and be normal. Completely normal.

But the ball is in his court, isn’t it? Or is it Dick’s court?

He shouts his frustration into his pillow then rolls over to kick his tangled covers away and clamber off his bed. It’s too early for this. He’ll just pop over a room, ask Dick what he meant. If he meant.

Jason’s phone buzzes on the nightstand with a text, and he can put off asking Dick for bit, since, well, it’s still quite early in the morning and he’d hate to bother Dick so early. In the morning. He stands from the glowing screen beckoning him from across his bed. Inhales, and holds.

One more glance at the closed door and Jason is sighing, fingers rubbing his temples. He flops facedown on his bed, reaches to the nightstand, and nabs his phone. It lights up blindingly bright. A new notification. Unknown contact? He squints at the digits on the screen. Huh. Jason’s thumb hovers over the notification. He clicks it anyway. A photo?

He’s greeted with the screenshot of a post, as well as a blown-up and cropped screenshot of the photo in the post right after. Dick and Jason’s hands are intertwined in the photo, the post’s caption screaming “omg OTP is real!!1 #Rhiter #Jaydick” 

Who is this?

If you’re planning on using him to get famous, look up ‘Flores.’ I promise you’ll regret it.

Um, fuck you???

None of his following texts get a response and his call goes straight to a generic voicemail. Bastard. Well, fine. If Mystery Stalker wants to play it that way.

The photo was rather tame: out of everything that could have been photographed and posted, this was not the… most exposing. But the warning, to put it lightly, makes him think it’s not as harmless as the one who posted it thought it was.

Jason bites back the disappointment that the question he has for Dick now isn’t the one he wanted to ask.

~...~

Blood coats the flats and edges of the blade, running down to the pointed tip, and each drop splatters open on the stone roof of the tower just short of Peter’s fingers. He stares at the crimson red pooling in front of his splayed hands before slowly lifting his head to take in the sight before him.

He will never be able to erase the sight of his mother run-through by blood-stained blade, body limp and hanging off the sword still held by Lord Rayne.

No, that is Rhivash, not his mother. Rhivash whom had leapt before Rayne’s blade when Peter was brought to his knees, weapon long lost, and had carelessly stolen the catharsis he chased. Peter’s chance of absolving himself of years worth of rage and hate gone with one seamless movement.

What’s worse, the sympathy that flooded Peter’s heart with the final whispered words that escaped from Rhivash’s lips with the last of his breath.

_I wanted to see you again, Ibn. But that’s not happening, is it?_

Hunched over and in on himself, Peter screams his agony into the unmoving stone beneath him. At the end of it all, he isn’t even the focus of the man he’s chased for years. Yet he also wails his frustration with his own soft heart, a betrayal of the anger that had brought him all the way here. He refuses to believe that he can feel as the traitor does, but he cannot deny it any longer. And buried underneath it all, he feels the sharp pain of renewed grief at seeing his mother die before him once more.

In his state, Peter ignores the Lord releasing his grip on the sword still embedded in the body that will never change form again, and further still when Rayne follows the falling form down to the floor.

But the Lord’s dismayed exclamations that he’s lost the container he needed for his love’s soul drive Peter to his feet, and quick as a snake strike, Peter sinks the small dagger he pinched off of Rhivash’s body deep into the back of the Lord’s neck. He breaks through bone, severing spine from head, and the Lord’s body slumps down onto the other corpse.

Fitting that the two who summoned the dead now lie among them.

It’s a long time before Peter collects himself sufficiently to retrieve his sword and put himself together. Peter glances back at the bodies once more as he heads to the trapdoor. He growls in frustration. For the man that once saved a boy from water and then from steel, he can, at least, bury the body and lay him to rest.

~...~

“I wouldn’t, by the way,” Jason blurts, “full disclosure.”

Dick glances up at Jason’s worried face and back down at the texts on Jason’s phone in his hands.

He looks back up, meeting Jason’s worry with reassurance. “I know.”

It’s after the ‘last’ day of filming, and the producers are trying to decide if they want an epilogue of sorts or a pilot for the next season when Jason lets Dick know the Situation by bluntly showing Dick the texts with the screenshots of them both and the still unknown ‘Flores’ he was messaged.

They’re in the kitchen, where Dick had been brewing late afternoon coffee for them both before Jason asked him for a serious conversation.

To be honest, it isn’t exactly the conversation Dick thought Jason was going to start, and while he’s in the confession box, he may as well admit that he’s been hoping for a clear signal of some sort that Jason is interested in him. Dick hates that he’s not sure if Jason’s actions the other day were from Jason’s innate kindness or something more.

As it is, the maelstrom of feelings welling up inside him aren’t what he’d prepared for at all.

The texts are from Tim. He knows it’s Tim, even if the number isn’t one he’s known Tim to use before, and Dick can’t decide if he’s relieved at the assurance that Tim still cares about him – _he knew Tim did but…_ – or disappointed in himself that he’d broken his promise to give Tim time in pursuit of his own selfish happiness.

“Uh Dick?”

He’s broken from his thoughts by Jason’s tentative voice. His friend is oozing worry, but most importantly, something Dick recognizes in Jason’s concern as a twinkle of _something_ from That Day.

It’s the same thing Dick thinks he catches himself feeling when he finds himself mesmerized by Jason’s adorable little quirks. And if Dick recognizes that he’s feeling love, wouldn’t the Thing he sees in Jason be the same?

Dick glances at the texts once more, fidgeting with the phone before stilling and putting it facedown on the kitchen counter. Tim– When things are better, Tim will understand why Dick needs to move on, or at least, Dick fervently hopes so.

In the safety of this home, surely he is allowed to chase happiness?

A loud clash and a curse, and Dick realizes that his cheeks are wet with tears. He comes to full awareness as a white square is presented to him and blinks the blur from his eyes. Jason, holding a full roll of paper towels tucked under one arm, is giving him a square. Behind Jason, a half-used paper towel roll stuck in its holder lies fallen on the ground, surrounded by ripped pinches of white. The edges of the most recent sheet matching the fluff laying scattered about it, and a storage cabinet door hangs open.

Evidently, Jason had tried to get him something to dry his tears with, believed the tissue box in the living room too far away, and went for the next best thing only to find the finicky paper towel holder giving him the usual trouble. He was obviously left with no choice but to get a completely new roll out of storage in his quest.

Dick feels his mind clear after seeing Jason’s mild chaos, and he knows, now, what he’s going to do. Whether he will regret this in the future or not, a chance to have something beautiful with Jason, both similar and different to what they had in childhood, is not something Dick is willing to give up.

He smiles a watery smile and accepts the paper towel, dabbing at his tears and blowing his nose before wadding it up. He puts it back in Jason’s hand, just to see him try to hide the dismayed disgust on his face – _just like when they were kids_ – and this sudden change in emotions can’t be good for him; he’s probably also confusing Jason horribly right now.

So, in apology, he tells Jason the things he’s hidden from everyone, except anyone that has seen Rhivash on screen. About Bruce’s passing, the disagreement wedging itself between his brother and himself, and the utter loneliness he’s carried despite being surrounded by people.

But Dick can feel the doubt that has plagued him worming its way back into his determination, his voice faltering. Mid-sentence, Dick throws himself at Jason, engulfing him in a tight hug, and the jostling makes Jason skip right over shock and go directly to reaction, tossing the gross wad and embracing Dick in turn, just as firmly. Seconds pass in silence until Jason feels more than hears Dick speaking quietly into his shoulder.

“Is it wrong to want to be happy?” Dick whispers. “My –” a swallow “– Dad died only a while ago. My brother hates me, and he shouldn’t care anymore but I think he still does and somehow I still hurt him, even an ocean away. And I can’t– How selfish do I have to be, to want– I can’t ask for–”

Dick chokes and his fingers tighten in Jason’s shirt, while he cuts himself off.

Jason takes a moment to mull it over, and it’s all he can do to keep the yearning of the past months out of his own voice, but he replies in a distant timbre, “I don’t think it’s wrong to want to be loved, or to want to know you are loved.”

There’s a bit of panic when Jason hears Dick’s breath hitch and no breaths following, Dick tensing in his hold. He backs away slightly, only to find Dick leaning up and gently kissing him, lips soft against his own. A beat, and Dick is pulling away.

Hurriedly, Dick manages, “Please tell me if I’m wrong and if so, I’m so sorry –”

Jason doesn’t let Dick get far, grabbing Dick’s hands. “No! You’re not. Not wrong, uh, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to confess, but Dick, you’re just a bit upset right now, and I absolutely refuse to take advanta –”

Dick interrupts him by diving back into his hug. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay. I just,” A pause, with a hint of wonder. “I’m… happy.”

“I want you to know that you’re loved,” Dick murmurs into Jason’s chest. “That you know I love you, too.”

Jason looks down at the top of Dick’s head in surprise and can’t help the elated laugh that escapes with the warmth bubbling up in his chest.

He wraps his arms around Dick and gives a small squeeze in return.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Carbonjen for the beta!


End file.
